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No.322 (Dutch) Squadron at war

At 12 june 1943 No.167 RAF (Gold Coast) Squadron was moved from Westhampnett to Woodvale and the Squadron was renumbered No.322 (Dutch) Squadron. The Squadron code 'VL' was taken from no. 167 squadron. At that moment the squadron was flying a mix of Spitfires mk.Vb and mk.Vc.

At the start of the war for the Dutch in may 1940 several hundreds airmen succeeded in escaping to the United Kingdom. In total some 300 men arrived in England. They were from the Dutch Army Air Force (LVA) and Dutch Naval Air Services (MLD). Of these men about 20 were trained pilots, 75 student pilots and about 50 ground engineers. A few aircraft of the MLD also arrived in England. The British were very carefull with all the new arrivals and allmost all were interned for some time. The risk for intruders was too big for the British. After clearance pilots and ground personnel found their ways to RAF squadrons.

By 1942 the demand for an all Dutch fighter squadron was strongly supported by H.R.H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. As the available pilots were not enough to set up a full squadron, for the time being no. 167 squadron was used to set up an all Dutch B-flight. New additions from the OTU's made the Dutch group large enough to establish a full (Dutch) squadron.

On june 12th 1943 no.167 (Gold Coast) squadron took off for a ferry flight to Woodvale. After landing at Woodvale the squadron was renumbered no. 322 (Dutch) squadron.

Main operations from Woodvale were familiarisation flights, training close formation, dogfight-training, night flight training and gunnery practice. There were always two aircraft at readiness but there were only 8 scrambles in the Woodvale-period. Scrambles were for lost friendly planes. The squadron continued these operations untill the transfer to Hawkinge (near Dover) on december 27th 1943.

The Spitfires were left at Woodvale. At Hawkinge the Dutch took over newer Spitfires from a Belgian Spifire Squadron. On january 4th the squadron flew its first operational mission. Most of the missions that followed were escort support to Mitchells, Marauders and Bostons to France.

On march 9th 1944 the Squadron moved to Acklington were the Spitfire mk.V was exchanged for Spitfire mk.XIV. On april 23rd 1944 the squadron moved to Hartford Bridge (Blackbushe) in preparation of D-Day. However the squadron saw hardly action over Normandy.

On june 20th 1944 the squadron moved to West Malling to take part in Operation Cross-bow, the anti V-1 operations. The missions were called Diver patrols by the pilots as the V-1 was called a diver. At West Malling tactics were developed to destroy V-1's in mid-air. On july 21st the squadron moved to Deanland to become active in 'diver patrols'. On august 10th the squadron flew its last 'diver-patrol'. During the operation the squadron claimed 128 V-1's destroyed. Top scorer was Lt. Burgwal with 19 'divers' destroyed. On august 2nd the squadron received ten new Spitfires XIV's only to be returned two weeks later.
After returning the mk.XIV's the squadron received mk.IX's as the plan was that the squadron soon was to fly operations over France. Objectives were Bomber escorts, No-Ball missions and fighter sweeps. Operations were continued till october 10th 1944 when the squadron moved to Fairwood Common and got new Spitfires mk.XVI's. After familiarisation with the new aircraft the squadron moved to Biggin Hill on october 30. From Biggin Hill the squadron flew operations against targets on the continent.

On january 3rd 1945 the squadron moved to Woensdrecht. The Dutch were home again! From Woensdrecht the squadron flew ground attack missions against all kinds of targets: bridges, railroads, buildings and troop concentrations. At that time Holland was divided in two parts; the liberated south and the occupied north.

On february 21st 1945 the squadron moved to Schijndel. This was a temporary airfield. The squadron got new pilots and new replacement aircraft. Schijndel was nothing more than an open farmland covered with PSP plates to form a 1300 meters runway. The field was shared with 4 other squadrons. Later on even 9 squadrons were stationed at Schijndel. At that time the squadron got a new Commanding Officer: Bob van der Stok. He had escaped from Germany in the famous 'Great Escape'. Back in England he was anxious to fly again, so he did. He became C/O of no. 322 (Dutch) squadron. Here the squadron got its new squadron badge. It shows a parrot and the slogan in Dutch is 'Niet praten, maar doen'.

When the Twente airfield was liberated, the squadron moved to this base on april 18th 1945. Here it stayed only for a week. At Twente the squadron got a new squadron code; '3W'. The retreat of the Germans went fast and on april 27th the squadron moved into Germany to the airbase of Varrelbusch. From this base the last operation of the war was flown on may 7th 1945. On may 8th the war was over. On july 2nd 1945 the squadron moved to Wunstorf. Here it stayed till october 6th 1945. At that day the squadron returned to the UK to airbase Lasham to be disbanded the same day.

During the war no.322 squadron flew 4,896 operations in 6,382 flying hours.

The traditions of no. 322 (Dutch) squadron were taken over by a new 322 Squadron that was established at Twente airbase on september 27th 1946. Nowadays 322 squadron flies F-16's from Leeuwarden airbase. During the Balkan War no. 322 took part in operations. The last operation was operation 'Allied Force'.